Page 42 of The Wrong Brother

“Shopping?” my niece guesses immediately.

Emma crosses her arms. “Your uncle thinks I dress like a depression-era orphan.”

“You’re embellishing.”

Kate gasps dramatically. “Oh my God, are we doing rich people shopping?”

I regret everything.

Ordinarily, I would never bring Kate anywhere near situations involving business arrangements, revenge plots, or complicated women connected to my brother. I deliberately built walls around her life. School. Friends. Safety. Distance from men like me.

But Mrs. Alvarez called this morning, crying softly through the phone while explaining her diagnosis. Cancer, metastasized. She doesn’t have very long, and I won’t deny her time with her family.

The word still sits wrong in my head.

She has cared for Kate for six years. Fed her, scolded her, protected her while I handled the uglier parts of my world elsewhere. Now she is sixty-three, widowed, and facing chemotherapy mostly alone. Chemotherapy that has a higher chance ofnotworking than of making a difference.

And suddenly I am responsible for balancing two dangerous parts of my life at the exact same time.

Kate bounces fully into the room before I can object further. “Can Emma get one of those giant fancy coats rich people wear in Christmas movies?”

A small part of me is proud that Kate doesn’t seem to identify with the “rich people” she keeps mentioning. From the moment I found her and brought her here, I was terrified that I was ruining her somehow; that she wouldn’t grow to be well-adjusted. Normal.

Emma snorts softly while zipping the suitcase closed. “I’d settle for anything that makes me blend in.”

Reasonable.

I watch her lift the suitcase herself and immediately take it from her without thinking. Emma pauses, then looks up at me strangely. I’m suddenly aware of the domesticity of the gesture.

“Thank you,” she says quietly.

The softness in her voice unsettles me more than anger ever does.

Clearing my throat, I move toward the hallway instead. “You’ll need clothing suitable for political events. The gala they’re sure to have, the engagement party, the wedding itself.”

“And snow,” Kate adds importantly. She was sad to be told last night that I’d be leaving her here to travel to Colorado for an unknown length of time. Stepan is working hard to find someone to step in for Mrs. Alvarez; a mix of babysitter and bodyguard.

“And snow,” I agree, not thinking twice when my niece slips her hand into mine and tugs me into the hallway.

Emma follows, her eyes narrowed in a way that makes my heart thud uncomfortably. As if someone is seeing me naked, without weapons, without the mask that is my alter-ego.

And despite every instinct telling me this arrangement is becoming far too personal; I find myself slowing slightly so they can both keep pace beside me as we head downstairs together and out to the waiting car.

* * *

I could bring her to Lord&Lion, but I don’t. Some instinct tells me she wouldn’t be comfortable there. Instead, we drive into the fashion district, tight-knit streets with minimalist doors and almost no windows. Everyone knows what’s inside just from the names on the buildings. Nothing else is needed.

Shopping with Emma and Kate is its own particular form of psychological warfare. Kate darts through the store, gasping and murmuring while Emma trails beside me, looking increasingly horrified by every visible price tag.

“I’m serious,” she mutters under her breath as we pass another display of handbags worth more than most used cars. “People should be arrested for charging this much for leather.”

“People are arrested for far less, in my experience.”

Emma cuts me a look. “That sounded suspicious.”

“Everything sounds suspicious to you.”

“Because you are suspicious.”